Sunday, 14 August 2011

A review of Opinionated Objects at Debut Contemporary

It’s a while ago now, but I’ve finally found the time to write a little bit about Opinionated Objects!

On Saturday July 30th me and Twinkle braved the intense sunshine and sat in the window of Debut Contemporary Gallery, painting onto people’s unwanted objects in aid of the Ubuntu Education Fund.The project took weeks and weeks of planning, so it was brilliant to finally see it happen and to have such a good response.

The idea was that people donated an unwanted object and a hope or wish for the future. We then painted the text onto the object, transforming the unwanted object into a piece of art. In exchange we asked for a donation to The Ubuntu Education Fund.

We wanted to raise awareness about Ubuntu and the amazing work that they do for children in South Africa who’s lives have been affected by HIV and AIDS, and also raise some cash for the charity.From an artistic point of view we wanted to do an interactive project to create a visual display of people’s thoughts, hopes and opinions, ‘upcycling’ their unwanted goods along the way!

The response was really positive, we were given some really interesting objects to paint on, including a fishbowl, a breadbin, a guitar, an old record player, a wooden sword, a toy horse, some speedos….and lots more.People were very thoughtful with the opinions and hopes they gave us to paint onto the objects too, we were given a diverse range of really heartfelt statements such as:

‘I wish I cared enough to cry’

'Good ideas are the heartstrings of the soul'

‘May we always find nourishment in the simplest of things’

‘I hope that our relationship with technology doesn’t take over our relationship with each other’

‘I wish for all of us to work harder to protect our beautiful but threatened marine and sea life before it is lost forever’

We combined our different painting styles to collaborate on most of the objects, some lent themselves more to Twinkle’s style, some to mine, each piece was signed by both of us.

Thankyou to everyone who donated objects and opinions!Thankyou so much for donating to Ubuntu, and thankyou to Debut Contemporary Gallery for hosting the event.

(thankyou to Sophia for being so helpful on the day!Me and Twinkle were just about delirious from being in the direct sunlight of the gallery window on the hottest day of the year – and having to wear sunglasses to paint!)

We would love to continue this project somehow and do it on a larger scale with more time to paint more objects.